Harriette Tsosie - Biography

Biography:

Harriette Tsosie was born in New York City, raised in upstate New York, Cincinnati, Charlottesville and Orlando. She frequently moved with her family as her father, an electronics engineer, pursued job opportunities created by the industry’s consolidation after World War II. Tsosie graduated from Kalamazoo College, Michigan, where she studied English literature and Art. After marrying her college boyfriend and moving to Texas, she entered graduate school at Baylor University and taught freshman English. When her husband completed his PhD program, the young couple and their two children moved to Iowa where he had accepted a chemistry professorship at Drake University. Their third child was born in Des Moines.

As a faculty wife, Tsosie pursued her art interest, studying with artist-in-residence Jules Kirschenbaum, a renowned New York painter. When her three children had graduated college and her marriage ended, Tsosie moved to New Mexico (1995). She studied encaustic (pigmented wax) painting with master artists Ellen Koment and Paula Roland. She met and married Carl Tsosie, Jr., living at Picuris Pueblo for five years before the couple moved to Albuquerque’s South Valley in 2009.

 

Artist Statement:

I am a full-time, award-winning artist, who lives and works in Albuquerque’s South Valley. The geographical upheavals in my life left me searching for my own identity, which became the subject matter of my work. I see identity as shaped primarily by genetics, culture and language. The language aspect is my focus, connecting me with my academic studies of Latin, English, French and Spanish. I am interested in the shapes of language, particularly Asian and African, not their literal meaning.

In 2019, I created “Becoming Whole” - a series of 18 mandalas (circle shapes) - for Gallery with a Cause. Mandalas represent wholeness and exist in many cultures. Power is at the center of the circle. Rattle basket paintings, created in 2024, continued my exploration of mandala shapes. As used in Native American ceremonies, rattles call the spirits, acknowledging their presence and including them in the dance. The Basket #2 painting holds gourd rattles, grown in my husband’s garden and designed collaboratively. Other works included in this exhibition are “Word Salad” (drawing on current political events) and four “Language Spirits” paintings, which imagine the “spirit” of various languages by creating figures made of them.

For the 2026 Architecture of Beauty exhibition, I created the “A Cup of Tea” paintings. I remember sitting in a place like the NM Cancer Center as my then husband underwent his rounds of chemotherapy. I wished with all my heart that our life could just return to “normal.” Conceiving this body of work, I considered what might be “normal” in another person’s life.  What routine? What ritual? The Asian tea ceremony came to mind and was appealing due to the use of tea in many forms throughout the world. The Japanese symbol at the bottom of each painting is a star, referencing my middle name, Estelle.

My work is included in the Encaustic Art Museum’s permanent collection, the 2016 book Encaustic Art in the Twenty-First Century, and numerous private collections and catalogs. My painting “Two Worlds” was selected by the Bernalillo Art in Public Places program and is displayed in the county’s headquarters in downtown Albuquerque.